--- title: This Coral Growth Simulation Looks Beautiful & Mesmerizing description: FX artist Iman Vafaei shared a Houdini-based coral growth simulation showing rapid coral growth stirring sand and bubbles underwater. The effect used a SOP... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/this-coral-growth-simulation-looks-beautiful-mesmerizing-2qp98todv twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: This Coral Growth Simulation Looks Beautiful & Mesmerizing | daily.dev og:description: FX artist Iman Vafaei shared a Houdini-based coral growth simulation showing rapid coral growth stirring sand and bubbles underwater. The effect used a SOP... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/this-coral-growth-simulation-looks-beautiful-mesmerizing-2qp98todv og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/2qp98TODV.png og:image:alt: This Coral Growth Simulation Looks Beautiful & Mesmerizing og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # This Coral Growth Simulation Looks Beautiful & Mesmerizing **[80 LEVEL](https://daily.dev/sources/80lv)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary FX artist Iman Vafaei shared a Houdini-based coral growth simulation showing rapid coral growth stirring sand and bubbles underwater. The effect used a SOP solver with masks based on curvature, direction, and shadow to control growth, a Vellum Grain simulation for 60 million sand points built from 10 sand types, MaterialX for shading, and Karma XPU for rendering. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How was the coral growth simulation made in Houdini with realistic sand and bubbles? It combined a SOP solver driven by curvature, direction, and shadow masks to control coral growth patterns, with a Vellum Grain simulation for the sand made of 60 million instanced points built from 10 different sand types. Shading used MaterialX and the final render used Karma XPU. _Follow houdini vfx techniques like procedural growth sims through daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Artist Recreates Bubble Physics in Houdini Based on Wētā's Research](https://daily.dev/posts/artist-recreates-bubble-physics-in-houdini-based-on-w-t-s-research-dmgob4lmz) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Stunning Forest Stream Simulation Made with Houdini](https://daily.dev/posts/stunning-forest-stream-simulation-made-with-houdini-m4q0odpap) · 80 LEVEL · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Houdini River Simulation Inspired By Iceland](https://daily.dev/posts/houdini-river-simulation-inspired-by-iceland-x0m8vkrl7) · 80 LEVEL · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Houdini Artist Simulates Nori Seaweed Break](https://daily.dev/posts/houdini-artist-simulates-nori-seaweed-break-wpcnsdlfa) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#3d](https://daily.dev/tags/3d) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/this-coral-growth-simulation-looks-beautiful-mesmerizing-2qp98todv) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"This Coral Growth Simulation Looks Beautiful & Mesmerizing","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/this-coral-growth-simulation-looks-beautiful-mesmerizing-2qp98todv","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/this-coral-growth-simulation-looks-beautiful-mesmerizing-2qp98todv"},"datePublished":"2026-08-18T21:59:50.921Z","dateModified":"2026-08-18T22:01:42.361Z","description":"FX artist Iman Vafaei shared a Houdini-based coral growth simulation showing rapid coral growth stirring sand and bubbles underwater. 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